By the Numbers (Love Logic #3) - K.M. Neuhold Page 0,2

to each their own.

“Sorry,” he says, and I shake my thoughts loose and glance over at him.

“Hm?” I lift my eyebrows and pop another salty kernel into my mouth.

“Oh, I was just complaining about the physics of space travel as portrayed in pop culture, and then I apologized for boring you.” A wry smile twists on his lips.

“It’s not you. I was just a million miles away in my own thoughts.”

“I’m glad that happens to other people too.” Alex polishes off the last of the popcorn and then takes the bowl from my hands and stands up. “Want some more? I feel like I ended up hogging most of it.”

“Considering how fast I was hoovering it up before we even sat down, I think it was fifty-fifty at worst. But I’ll definitely take some more.”

He gives me a dorky little salute I can’t help but laugh at as he walks out of the room. I hate to admit it, but I steal a quick glance at his ass because he’s cute and I’m human.

When Elijah first mentioned that Alex was looking for a roommate, I almost turned the idea down flat, the memories of the too-young-looking nerd with the cute smile and the punny t-shirt dancing in my mind. Loneliness drove me to make enough bad choices last year, and I promised myself I’d be smarter once I got out here to California. So far, so good, and I’m not about to break that streak by doing something stupid like hitting on my roommate.

Friendship is all that makes sense between us, and if I’m in the bad habit of ogling my friends, well, it’s something I need to work on.

Alex returns from the kitchen with a fresh bowl of popcorn and sits back down. He offers the bowl, and I jokingly open my mouth and point at it. He raises his eyebrows and picks up a piece, closing one eye and checking his aim.

“Trigonometry, physics, just the right calculations and…” He launches the piece directly into my open mouth, and I crunch down on it with a smirk. “Bullseye,” Alex says smugly.

“That can’t be that hard.” I reach for a piece, and he opens his mouth. But apparently, it’s not as easy as he made it look. My first try bounces off his nose, the next his chin, a few graze the rim of his mouth before tumbling onto his lap. The fact that he’s laughing hysterically and not even attempting to hold still doesn’t help matters, and by the sixth or seventh try, I’m not even genuinely trying to get them in his mouth, I’m just chucking popcorn at him for the fun of it.

More popcorn ends up on the floor and in our laps than in our mouths, and we end up goofing around and talking more than watching the movie…it’s nice. When the movie ends, I haul myself off the couch, an avalanche of popcorn falling from my lap to the floor, and shuffle into the kitchen to grab the broom and dust pan.

Alex follows behind me, putting the bowl into the dishwasher and then leaning against the counter to look at me.

“Thanks for hanging out tonight; it was fun,” he says.

I nod. “It was. I know we ended up living together because we have mutual friends, but I think we could end up being friends too.”

A fresh smile tilts the edges of his mouth. “I’d like that.” His eyes are still on me as he pushes off the counter. “Sleep well,” he says before slipping past me to head down the hall to his bedroom.

“You too,” I call after him.

Chapter 2

Alex

I furrow my brow in concentration, moving my pencil over the lined paper. My professor’s voice a dull drone, barely penetrating my conscious thought, but still seeping into the deeper recesses of my mind without any effort. I huff in frustration and flip my pencil over to erase my mistake, and then make another attempt.

A sharp elbow catches me in the side, and I look up from the almost perfect rough sketch of a cock in the margins of my notes that has been occupying me for the past twenty minutes.

“Mr. Monroe,” the professor says again, fixing me with a look. “Do you have an answer?”

Elijah’s eyes go wide, his cheek turning pink, even though he’s not the one being addressed. His glasses slip down his nose; he pushes them back into place and then attempts to mouth the answer to me. I wave him off